Thinking Through Love

What is this? This is the shortest prose I have written that fairly accurately provides my current writing style; however, despite a plot, this is a series of reflections. Having never been in a serious relationship, I can only wonder. This is what I wonder.


Thinking Through Love



Have you ever seen two people in love? Have you ever noticed two people holding hands, or walking so close together you couldn’t tell which feet belonged to which body? Maybe you have been one of them, seeing in the eyes of the other something beyond words, something inexplicable, ineffable, otherworldly—or perhaps other-dimensionally, for the world is oft becoming too ordinary—that first appeared with first sight. Or maybe there was something within them that just seemed more, felt more real, appeared more whole and human than any other. For that must be why you are in love: because there’s no one better.

Perhaps love is just a mystery to me more than it should be. Maybe that fire in her eyes is actually easily explained by some medical condition, and perhaps his overwhelming personality is simply psychological. But whether that is true or not, I would think it rather wise to remain ignorant of the truth. It’s only when one is still fooled that the trick is any good; the secret only moves you along to the next show.

Chances are, however, that you have been a part of this bond that holds two lives closer than any atomic bond, closer even perhaps than one is to his own body. It seems, at least from the outside, that there is some attraction—more than just the physical, mind you—that rends the life from the body, much as paintings gathering dust in ancient museums depict the wispy soul leaving the body like a foul hemorrhage. Anyone could tell that it’s not just the hands or lips that embrace, but the very essence of their beings seem to meet somewhere between them. Maybe that explains the lovesickness that often befalls those enamored by another as who they are is no longer contained to the body. But then again, that may just be bad virus. I wouldn’t know.

No matter where you are, there is bound to be love. Try a college campus and you may be smothered by it. It was only just yesterday that I found myself behind a particular couple that, had we eyes to see it, had sparks flying off from around them. It was touching, really, seeing her hand massage his back like a masseuse, his arm around her shoulder, professing to the world in a baptism of love. They obviously had found something in the other superior in some way from all else. Or maybe they just saw a different part of it, the beautifully sculpted nose catching their attention over the fact of the sculpture’s lack of arms that moved others along. But if Venus de Milo can attract so much attention despite her lack of appendages, and Winged Nike notwithstanding her missing crown, perhaps humans can too.

Another couple I found myself behind was a bit more subdued. They were sitting, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her body, their lips whispering words of some obvious import based on the attention given. For all I know, they could have been speaking absolute barbarian gibberish, but I doubt they would have minded. They had left their rational thoughts behind and carried with them at the time only the mental image of the other, not merely physically but internally as well. You must know more than the number of toes and fingers to fall into the well that is love, and as you go down, less seems to matter. Unfortunately, the shock of hitting the cold water, the defining point in this journey, often sends one racing up the rope leading back to freedom. But maybe not perfect freedom, for outside there are rules. Inside, there are only thoughts and what follow.

Nevertheless, love is something more experienced than discussed, for when it is present, no words can fathom it, and when there is none, no words can do. No amount of rhetoric or poetry or philosophical words can reflect something that perhaps exists more in another realm of reality, a domain inhabited by some foul beast—or fair angel. And to each his own demon.

As far as explanation of love, just as with explanation of why rutabagas exist and Adam’s Schrodinger-like bellybutton, no explanation is possible. Maybe we must come to terms with the idea that there are some mysteries that are so inherent in our lives, that though their presence is all too real, their truths and significance lie too far beyond human cognition. The brain may understand itself, but that is because it can think; but it cannot feel.

But when love comes to terms with reality, as its ambiguous figure breaks through the barriers separating it from the world it inhabits and our realities, as what is unknown and unspoken between two people becomes spoken in the rush of its wings, as what existed only in some rush of hormones suddenly becomes a rush of a whole psyche, only then is love born in our world.

But then again, I could be wrong.